Artist Statement

Painting is the way in which I explore the world. The way a scientist studies a cell under a microscope is similar to how I dissect a landscape. I am studying an environment/ a scene/ a moment-in-time for a large amount of time during the process of drawing and painting. While drawing, I am discovering the proportions and values of the positive and negative space. While painting, I am creatively breaking down the values into a simplified complementary color scheme of violet and yellow. I break the shadows, mid-tones, and highlights down into the colors of violet and yellow out of necessitate. I am colorblind. It is impossible for me to match colors perfectly to the natural world. So I don’t even try. Instead, I use distinct complimentary colors to investigate the value of light and shadow in an environment. Violet is the shadow. Yellow is the light.